Using More, spending less Challenge – January 2021 Results

Welcome back to my ‘spending less on beauty’ challenge 2.0. For those who are new to this blog, here are the details of my experiment if you are interested in joining. I really hope you will, as this is quite fun and dare I say, good for you. However, I totally get if you are a bit put off by my weird choice of name for this challenge. I should have gone with something easier and less interpretable, however then I would not be me. I am such a weirdo!

Purchases

• LookFantastic January 2021 – £15.29
• Sinsay Lucid Dreams EyeShadow Palette – £5.53
• Gliss Supreme Length Treatment Hair Mask – £4.89
• Gliss Supreme Length Shampoo – £2.21

Total spending: £27.92

Empties

• Davines Solu Shampoo 75ml – worth £5.25
• Briogeo Don’t Despair, Repair! Deep Conditioning Hair Mask 29ml – worth £12
• Sarah Chapman Platinum Stemcell Eye Mask  1 piece – worth £19.5
• Susanne Kaufmann Defence System – Vitamin C Ampoule – worth £16
• Ziaja Hand Cleansing Gel x 2 – purchased at the price of £3.65 each
• STARSKIN® Hollywood Hand Model™ Nourishing Double-Layer Hand Mask Gloves – worth £9
• Cuccio Somatology™ CALM + CLEAN Epsom Salt Hand and Body Wash – worth £29.27
• Sol de Janeiro Brazilian Bum Bum Cream 25ml – worth £4.58
• Rituals Ritual of Sakura Body Scrub 125g – worth £7.45
• Molton Brown Delicious Rhubarb and Rose Shower Gel 100ml – worth £7.33
• Indeed Labs Hydraluron Moisture Jelly 30ml – worth £24.99
• Peter Thomas Roth Water Drench Hyaluronic Cloud Hydrating Eye Gel 3ml – worth £7.8
• Susanne Kaufmann Shower/Shampoo 30ml – worth £5.64
• Algenist GENIUS Liquid Collagen 3.7ml x 2 – worth £11.1 each
• Purito Centella Green Level All in One Mild Pad Tone – purchased at the price of £21.27
• SkinCity NMF Hydrating Body Mist – 50 ml – worth £7
• IGK Hair Mistress Hydrating Hair Balm Sample – worth £2.58
• Patchology FlashPatch Restoring Night Eye Gels – Single  – worth £4
• Avant Skincare Eight-hour Anti-Oxidising & Retexturing Hyaluronic Facial Serum – worth £89

I used up a total of £302.16 worth of beauty products. In order to get this value, I calculated the worth of some of the products based on their sizes if the products do not normally retail in those sizes. In addition, as you might have noticed, I specified that some items were purchased at a given price. All of the products were purchased in one way or another, but for those specific ones I wanted to make the distinction. Why? Those are all products purchased last year and as such, I have the exact price I paid for them in my records. Plus, the prices are what I paid rather than what the products might be worth or retail for. Some of them were on sale or at an offer.

This means that my allowance from empties, based on the stipulated rules is half the amount aka £151.08

Allowance from posts

• Instagram -> £2

Allowance from Reviews

• Dr. Levy Switzerland Eye Booster Concentrate
• Sarah Chapman – Platinum Stem Cell Eye Mask Review
• Tan Luxe Illuminating Drops in Light/Medium
• Iconic London Lip Lustre Oil
• LookFantastic January Box Review
• STARSKIN Hollywood Hand Model™ Nourishing Double-Layer Hand Mask Gloves Review
• Costa Brazil Body Cream Review
• Peter Thomas Roth Water Drench® Hyaluronic Cloud Hydrating Eye Gel
• Indeed Labs Hydraluron Moisture Jelly
• Ritual of Jing Nourishing Shampoo
• It’s Skin Cera Routine Essential Toner
• The Must Try Hyaluronic Acid Toner from It’s Skin

Allowance from reviews: 12 x £5 = £60

Total allowance from posts: £62

The first month of January was way better than expected. To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive before the New Year as I was sure that I would be making my first big purchase for 2021 on the first days of the year. I was expecting some goody bag or gift with purchase to launch which is why I even made the provision of being able to go below -£2500 in total balance for this month only when I set out the rules for this year.

Oh right. Despite engaging in this challenge last year as well, I ended the year with a negative balance (see below) which I am carrying forward. If you are new to this, you get to start with a beautiful, round £0/€0/$0.

In terms of purchases, I am pretty proud of myself. Some of the above purchases could have been avoided, but I honestly did not feel like it. The LookFantastic Box was unavoidable as I subscribed for a 3 month period, with January being the third month, in order to get the last edition of the beauty advent calendar for less. The two products from Gliss were avoidable though. However, they were part of a promotion that got me free delivery on my groceries so with the delivery fee being £4, I decided that it was worth it as I got some products I actually get to see and use for my money.

As for the eyeshadow palette, well, I really liked the shades. The palette is a new launch from the Polish brand Sinsay and I was curious to see what it was like. The retailer has just launched a beauty line in addition to their clothing and home range so I wanted to give it a shot. For those who are unfamiliar with the brand, the shop is like Primark, but smaller. They sell colourful and rather fashionable clothing (pretty sure they are trying to keep up with the latest trends) and have a nice, albeit limited, range fo home accessories and small furniture items. Okay, maybe it is more like a Polish version of Forever21 rather than a Primark, but it was Primark I though of when I first visited a store last year.

And now…. the dreaded calculations. Let’s see where I stand after 13 months of taking part in this challenge.

£151.08 (allowance from empties) + £62 (allowance from posts) – £27.92 (January’s spending) – £2,421.66 (2020’s closing balance) = -£2,236.5

Things are starting to look up. Okay, I just got hit by a weird thought. I was just thinking that this number is way better given that it is just on paper and not an actual balance on a credit card or anything. It is not so whew. However, I know that I could say that I would have loved to see better results, especially given the closing balance for January, but this month represented true progress. I used up way more products that I already owned than purchased. I used 20 products and purchased around 10 if we count each product from the LF box individually. That should mean a bit more space in my beauty storage even if nothing else. That is not the case though, the difference in between the amount spent and the value of the items used is pretty high. I used up more than £300 worth of beauty products. It is still early, but this month’s results make me hopefully that maybe this year I will do better overall.

How does January look for you?

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